August 15, 2018 9:54am EDTAugust 14, 2018 11:52am EDTMLB, NOPOPUPIn an interview with Sporting News, Idelson speaks on some of the bigger issues and topics facing the Baseball Hall of Fame, its voting process and more.(Getty Images)

From the rule allowing voters to select only 10 candidates each year to the broadly defined character clause, the voting process for the Baseball Hall of Fame fans is unique and can sometimes be a challenge to understand and reconcile.

Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame since 2008, works with the Hall of Fame’s senior staff team and Board of Directors to set the voting rules, which have changed in several respects over the past decade. He offers his opinions on several major issues relating to how the voting process is and should be run.

SPORTING NEWS: The rule that voters may select only 10 candidates each year is the most heavily debated part of the Hall of Fame election process. Critics say that this rule prevents some worthy Hall of Famers from being elected while also forcing deserving candidates off the ballot when they do not receive at least 5 percent of the vote. Are you concerned with how the "Rule of 10" is working in practice?

JEFF IDELSON: No, we're very comfortable with the way voting is working. Every voter has to determine how he or she might use their votes. We feel that 10 is a fair number and a good number. We feel the system is working well. Voters, in general, are voting for 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 players per ballot on average so the entire 10 selections are not always being used. At the end of the day, the players who are elected deserve to be here, and we have a process which allows for looking at a player’s career in perpetuity, namely the veterans’ processes. With those veterans' processes, no one is ever really eliminated anyway.

SN: Many voters have said that there are more than 10 candidates who deserve election each year. Is there a point when you say that 10 may have been a good number in the past, but that it is now time to allow voters to select more than 10?

JI: We feel that 10 is right. I understand the argument. There are many people who would like to see it expanded to beyond 10, but there are also some who are comfortable with a lot fewer than 10. With the fact that 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 selections is the average, we are comfortable where we are. I know the BBWAA as a whole petitioned us three or four years ago to go to a limit of 12, but looking at the way balloting has gone over time, we are very, very comfortable with a maximum of 10 that you can vote for.

SN: Several players who have eventually been elected to the Hall of Fame by the writers started with low vote totals. Bert Blyleven is one example. But if players fall off the ballot when they don’t meet the 5 percent minimum — such as Lou Whitaker or Kenny Lofton — they don’t get the chance to build any momentum. Do you worry that the process can remove players from the ballot too quickly and before they are given adequate time to be considered fully?

JI: No. I believe it’s a balancing act. The flip side of not having a 5-percent rule is that the ballot will continue to grow and grow and grow, thus diluting a candidate's chance for election. We feel comfortable that those who remain on the ballot certainly deserve to be there. There may be candidates who fall off the ballot precipitously, for one reason or another, but it doesn’t mean they can’t ever be considered again.

SN: The Hall of Fame’s character clause has inspired a lot of controversy. On the one hand, you want good sportsmen and people to get into the Hall of Fame. On the other hand, character for election is only vaguely defined. Especially in the PED era, deciding who is and isn’t of good character becomes very difficult for voters, and many don’t want the responsibility of having to judge a player’s character. Is the character clause so difficult to define and abide by that it has outlived its usefulness for the Baseball Hall of Fame?

JI: I don’t think so. I think that the idea you would take character out of your rules for election doesn’t make any sense for the Baseball Hall of Fame and our voting. Every voter has to determine what character means for them. It's meant to be a guide. It is meant to ask: "Did this player respect the game? Did this player respect the uniform? Are you proud of this person in terms of how they conducted themselves with respect to the game?"

Crystal balls aren’t always crystal. Sometimes, there’s cloudiness to them. The character clause is just one of the aspects of voting. Of course, the overall contributions to the teams for which the player played are paramount, but the character clause is in there for a reason. Some industries, and some sports, need to be held to higher standards. Baseball is, and we think that’s good.

SN: As you say that baseball needs to be held to a higher standard, many will say that the Hall of Fame already has low-character individuals in it, including players who enforced baseball’s color line before integration. How can the Hall of Fame claim to hold baseball players to some higher standard when such players are currently being celebrated in the Hall?

JI: Every year that voting comes up, you have to look at the rules as they relate to society today. You cannot go back and look at past history, in that sense, because the rules of society were different.

You can certainly wonder today how some individuals from the past are in the Hall of Fame given the character clause, which was introduced in 1945. Those individuals were elected during times in our country’s history that were very different than today, and the way that the character clause was considered was different as well, and reflective of those times. You have to take the times you’re living in and apply the character clause to those standards.

SN: That statement implies that you don’t believe the Hall of Fame should remove anyone whose character and values would prevent them from being elected today.

JI: No. At this point, we're comfortable with who’s been elected over time, from the time in which they were elected. We are not looking to remove anybody from the Hall of Fame.

SN: Why do you believe character matters in the context of baseball? Character isn’t given the same importance in the selection process for the Halls of Fame of other sports. Why is character so central to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in your view?

JI: Probably because we’re such a big part of American culture and history, and character matters in our country. And baseball is a reflection of our country.

Life is full of opinions, and you can determine character however you like. Everyone has a different opinion of how character should be evaluated. The point of that guideline is to ensure that those who are being considered for election didn't disgrace the game.

SN: Does the character clause, in your opinion, only apply to players’ respective playing careers or should the character clause extend to anything in their lives, even outside of baseball and after they played?

JI: The voters can define it as they wish.

SN: Players now have 10 years, instead of 15, on the writer’s ballot. Some have alleged that the change was made either to give suspected PED users less time on the ballot or to diminish the role of the writers in the election process. Please explain the reason for the change.

JI: We made this change in 2014 to go into effect in 2015. The change was made because we have a trend since 1980 where very few players were getting elected after the 10th ballot. In fact, after 1980, there were only a few players who were elected after the 10th ballot. The idea was that instead of letting players twist in the wind for five years, with a very, very unlikely chance of earning election, the change would make them eligible sooner for the veterans’ processes. The change also let us continue to thin the ballot and to allow for a more contemporary group of candidates.

SN: While writers may have been the liaison between players and fans decades ago, they no longer are the gatekeepers of the sport. To adjust to how baseball is changing, do you believe that fans and players now should have some complementary role in Hall of Fame voting in order to diversify the process?

JI: I think there are many groups who could vote for the Hall of Fame that would be worthy of consideration as part of an electorate. What works well for us with the writers, who still have a very, very strong stake in the game, is their independence as well as the amount of time they spend covering the games. You still have to have covered baseball for 10 years to earn the right to vote. You have to have been around and seen a lot of games. Writers are employed by newspapers, they are employed by media outlets, so there's an independence and an expertise. They are also organized as a group, and, when you look back at history, even this past election, we still believe that the writers do an excellent job.

You can certainly make a case for broadcasters, who see 162 games a year in many cases, to vote. What you have with broadcasters is that probably three-fourths of them are employed by their teams. I'm not suggesting they wouldn't act independently and individually, but the perception is when you're employed by a team that [you could have bias for that team].

Fans, of course, are great as well and love the game. We're all fans. But at the end of the day, we are very comfortable with the writers as a group filling that role.

SN: In 2013, no living players were elected. Have you ever considered a rule allowing for, say, the top two living vote getters be elected each year, even if they don’t meet the 75-percent threshold, in order to avoid that problem in the future?

JI: In 2013, we had three people inducted, but they were long deceased. It made for difficult weekend business-wise for Cooperstown and for the Hall of Fame. But we love the purity of the election. If no one is elected, we are not interested in changing the standards for a given year. We like the consistency. We feel it should be difficult to get in, and, on the rare occasion when we have nobody living be elected, such as in 2013, you just have to gulp and adjust your business plan.

SN: Hall of Famer Joe Morgan wrote a public letter saying that he and many Hall of Famers believe that PED users should never be elected to the Hall of Fame. When you hear such a strong opinion expressed by members of the Hall of Fame, how much weight does it hold?

JI: The members played the game — you also have managers, umpires, and executives, as well — but, by and large, it’s players. When the players came together collectively, as they did, and wanted to make their thoughts known, they made a big, strong statement. These are individuals who wore the uniform and played the game. They understand what it takes to play the game, and they certainly have a feeling of what they might consider an uneven playing field.

From our standpoint, we are comfortable with letting the writers determine whether players who are under a cloud of suspicion for PEDs or are known to have used PEDs be considered for election. It’s a very gray area. Nobody likes an uneven playing field, including the Hall of Fame. We believe in equality and fairness in sport. But there’s also a lot of gray, and the writers have done a good job of looking at career statistics and using the character clause to make value judgments.

SN: There has been a move toward transparency in voting, where voters are being strongly encouraged to make their ballots public. Is requiring ballots to be made public a positive move from the perspective of the Hall of Fame?

JI: The process toward transparency has been going on for a long time, and it has grown. The writers came to us and suggested that they wanted us to enforce a rule demanding transparency, and we were not comfortable implementing that rule. Our board felt, as did our senior team, that, if you’re a voter and you don’t want to reveal how you voted, that’s OK. You have that right. At the end of the day, there are those who want to reveal their ballots, and we are very comfortable with that, and those who don't, and we respect their privacy.

SN: No member of the Hall of Fame has ever earned 100 percent of the vote. The idea that a player of the caliber of Willie Mays did not receive every vote is inconceivable to many fans. How do you explain it in your own mind when the very best players aren’t elected unanimously?

JI: If you brought 400 or 500 people together and asked them to survey anything in the world, the chances of 100 percent unanimity, I would say, are none. While I can’t quite understand how some of the game’s greatest legends didn’t get 100 percent of the vote, by the same token, it shows that the process is democratic, that nothing is forced and that people have the right to their own opinions. I might not agree with it, but it shows that the process is democratic.

SN: Do you anticipate any changes being made to the Hall of Fame voting process over the next few years?

JI: I would never say never, because we’re always constantly reviewing the processes for election, both by the writers and the veterans’ committees. We have made a number of changes over the past decade or so to get to a place where we feel we’re the most relevant. As we sit here today, I feel very comfortable that we are relevant with the writers’ vote, and the veterans’ processes are lined up in the right way as well. I’m not anticipating that we will make any changes anytime soon.